By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

HOW can you determine if a certain place has not been explored yet? You can Google it. I did that and found some travel websites and some online forums that had basic information about the place. But when I got to a Wikipedia entry, I was surprised that it only had a short description about Bantayan island. It included a short description of its location, the population, and the different towns on the island.

Perhaps one travel website was right. Bantayan island is one of the “best kept secrets” of Cebu province. One possible explanation is that it takes half a day to get there, if you’re coming from Cebu City.

To get there, you have to travel from the city to Hagnaya wharf in San Remigo, where roro boats are docked. We went there using hired vans (I was sent there to cover an event of the Government Service Insurance System). The roro (a boat that can carry vehicles and people) ride took another hour to get to the Santa Fe dock.

Here’s a video I took of the roro vessel.

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